6x6 Asia Talent: Debsuddha, India

“Debsuddha's serious documentary approach in dealing with environmental issues helps him produce images with a strange hauntingness. His compositions that look almost artistic strike a balance with the content in them. His personal project about his aunts has a deep sense of intimacy and depicts universal human connection in a dignified way.” - Showkat Nanda, India, photographer, and 6x6 nominator.

Debsuddha is an independent photographer based in India.

Belonging, initiated in 2020, explores the companionship and psychological struggles of sisters Swati and Gayatri Goswami. The photographer’s elderly, unmarried aunts, who lead socially isolated lives due to the discrimination they face based on their skin color, have been further isolated from their surroundings by enforced government measures against the COVID-19 pandemic. Having observed their struggles since childhood, Debsuddha’s personal visual study shows the sisters’ growing dependency on each other and the impacts of isolation on their mental health.

The hands of Swati and Gayatri Goswami taken during lockdown at Swati Goswami’s residence in Kolkata, West Bengal, India, on 21 July 2020.

A portrait of togetherness, Gayatri and Swati Goswami, taken during lockdown in Kolkata, West Bengal, India, on 24 July 2020. 

A portrait of Swati Goswami taken during lockdown at her residence in Kolkata, West Bengal, India, on 24 July 2020. 

A sari — a traditional Indian women's garment — hangs from a wall inside the residence of Gayatri and Swati Goswami in Kolkata, West Bengal, India, on 11 July 2020. 

Towards the No Man's Land They Say is an ongoing body of work focusing on the impacts of climate change on the Sundarbans delta in India. Over the past 20 years, rising sea levels have led to rapid coastal erosion in the region, home to the largest mangrove ecosystem in the world. Saline water is poisoning farmland, the accelerating degradation of land and the lack of opportunities is forcing coastal residents to migrate towards cities. The photographer shows a community uprooted from their land and forced to leave the shrinking islands of the Sundarbans.

As proof of human habitation, the remains of a house stand at the shore of Botkhali village, Sagar island in the Sundarbans delta, India, on 2 May 2018.

A couple — originally from Ghoramara Island in the Sundarbans delta — living as migrant workers in the IT hub of India in Bangalore, Karnataka on 30 May 2018.

Workers often seek refuge in unhygienic slums, sometimes in jungles, but mainly on the outskirts of metropolitan cities. Bellandur, Bangalore, India, 28 May 2018.